Just What He'll Do
by Maralott Kinnen
Summary: It's a critical moment in Federation history, but as their world unravels around them, newly reunited Spock and Saavik find less and less reason to hide their truest feelings. M for pon farr style sexuality and violence. Absolutely not for the squeamish.
1. Prologue

Prologue

The title of the story refers to the song on the subject of Spock sung by Uhura in the TOS episode "Charlie X", usually referred to as "Oh, on the Starship Enterprise". I highly recommend that you google the lyrics and listen to the song on you TouTube to set the tone for this story as a whole.

Additionally, I shall attempt to provide a suggested "playlist" to accompany each chapter for your multimedia reading pleasure. Most or all of these songs can be found on YouTube.

It has been ten years since I wrote my first – and last – Spock and Saavik fic. Just over the last week I picked up TOS and began watching it again after a hiatus of as many years. Perhaps the angsty reunion between Spock and Saavik is an expression of the emotion I felt coming back to the material after so many years – heartfelt recognition of an old friend who never disappoints…

And so without further ado, I doff my cap to Gene Rodenberry, salute my fellow fans, and present to you my tale of woe and deliverance, betrayal and redemption, hate and yet, above all, love. Yes, above and beyond all else, this is most assuredly a tale of love. But it is a particular kind of love, not of the usual human sort. Our earth-customs do not apply here. Nor, indeed, do the known customs of any time or place. For this is the kind of love that can spring up only between two hearts who belong to no time and no place, however much their lives and dreams may depend on their ability to affect the appearance of belonging…


	2. Still and Deep

Playlist:

"Oh, On the Starship Enterprise", TOS Episode "Charlie X"

"Slide" Dido

"My Immortal" Evanescence

"Who Makes You Feel" Dido

"Here With Me" Dido

_Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,_

_When not to be receives reproach of being;_

_And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd_

_Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:_

_For why should others' false adulterate eyes_

_Give salutation to my sportive blood?_

_Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,_

_Which in their wills count bad what I think good?_

_No, I am that I am, and they that level_

_At my abuses reckon up their own:_

_I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;_

_By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;_

_Unless this general evil they maintain,_

_All men are bad and in their badness reign._

Sonnet 121

"These damned Klingons!" Starfleet Command Chief of Operations Admiral James Kirk slammed his fist into the top of his desk as he hunched aggressively over it. "We hail them for two weeks trying to set up a meeting, and then out of the blue they announce that they plan to show up in three days!"

"They are not accustomed to dealing with the Federation on such an uneven footing", said Ambassador Spock placidly. "They are at a tremendous disadvantage in terms of bargaining power. The timing of these talks is one of the few things they can control. And so they attempt to seize the opportunity to make us bend to accommodate them in the few ways they can."

"I am sick of these childish games!" bellowed the admiral. He looked as though he might just dismantle the whole desk with his bare hands. After a few seconds of silent fuming, Kirk looked up with sweat-beaded brow to make eye contact with Spock. "You probably think _I'm_ being quite childish right now."

"Your reaction is understandable", said Spock considerately. "Both because the behavior of our Klingon contacts has been generally short-sighted and disrespectful, and also because due to your personal experience and losses, it is only to be expected that your tolerance for them would be… something less than high." Kirk felt spent. He wondered, darkly, whether he would physically survive the strain of these negotiations. There was nothing to do, no action to take. Just sit and think and talk and calculate and recalculate and second-guess yourself until you were blue in the face and half-mad with self-doubt. Self-doubt. The natural state of a desk-bound Starfleet admiral, it seemed. He would rather follow his gut in the heat of the moment and press forward immediately with whatever seemed most right and take it on the chin if he got it wrong. Real consequences were problems that could be solved, conditions you could sink your teeth into and manhandle and wrestle to the ground and to submission. Hypothetical consequences? Hypothetical consequences were nothing but ephemeral half-imagined nightmares to haunt your days and rob you of your sleep and your sense of self. What was a commander, even a desk-jockey admiral, without his self-confidence? Without his decisiveness in the face of challenging times such as these?

Spock continued to stare into his eyes, ever so still, ever so steady. Like the surface of some vast body of water when there is not a breath of wind in the air. The stillest thing in nature. But still waters run deep. There could be any manner of thing beneath the surface. There were endless fathoms of possibility there. But the rigors of diplomacy did not trigger fits of agitated self-doubt in Spock. Spock could doubt the logic of any decision. He could examine and cross-examine every potentially compromising eventuality until he had beaten the impurities from the molten logic of any course of action and forged it into something that would perform as expected under any circumstance. He took nothing for granted and deconstructed every possibility to the indivisible fundamentals of its being. And it did not matter how many questions he had to labor under to do it. Spock questioned the logic and the wisdom of every piece of information he was presented. But he never questioned himself.

That is the difference, thought Kirk. Spock can pull something to pieces, he can live day after day with a head full of questions, a mass of uncertainties laid out before him, yet the uncertainty in the environment does not touch Spock the man. He has no need of rushing to a conclusive, definitive course to prove that he can decide correctly, to assert his confidence in himself. It is almost, mused Kirk strangely, as though he has no need of self-confidence. The work is the work and his self is his self, and, thought Kirk poetically, never the two shall meet.

Was this a Vulcan trait? Was this how Valeris had been able to betray those she had sworn to serve? Because work was work and her self was her self – and she permitted the two to run in opposition?

How illogical it would have sounded to them both if they could have read his thoughts on so many occasions aboard the Enterprise, when he felt her body shudder beneath his feet, beneath is hands on the controls, quaking with some mortal threat – when he felt the steel and the carbide of her as the flesh and the blood of his own body, when he would not, could not, lose her because to lose her would be to lose some inseparable half of himself…

What was a man like him supposed to do in a world that was made for a Vulcan like Spock? This was, indeed, the undiscovered country. And for Kirk, it held perils no battle ever had.

_James Tiberius, brokering the details of this peace may be the last straw of your career, _he said to himself in a voice that sounded oddly like his mother's. _But if it is the last thing you ever do, it will be worth it._

Peace. Peace with the Klingon Empire, the Klingons part of the Federation. The dissolution of the Neutral Zone. Space opened up to the Federation like the flowering of a virgin bride. Where would man go now?

Spock was still gazing steadily at him. And finally Kirk began to internally uncoil a little. There was something – a lot – to be said for the ability to quiet ones mind.

And then his computer pinged.

"Dammit – what the hell now?" Kirk slammed himself into his chair and hit several wrong buttons before pulling up the official interstellar communique.

Spock's eyes flicked with interest to the back of the monitor, and Kirk wondered idly whether that intense gaze could read his screen backwards through the opaque casing.

The message was not from Klingon space, and Kirk could have hugged his monitor in gratitude for the distraction. There was a very straightforward message from the USS Bozeman, accompanied by a linked classified message from Ambassador Sarek – for the eyes of Starfleet Command personnel only. Kirk, being Kirk, flicked open the classified message. He read the first two lines and slammed it closed again.

_In accordance with United Federation of Planets General Statutes Section 107 aka "Vulcan Culture Special Dispensation Section", Lt. Commander Valeris of the Starship Enterprise, being of Vulcan blood and birth and of established parentage, formally invokes her right to…_

He felt Spock's intensity level viscerally rise as he changed tack.

He pulled up the message from the Bozeman, studied it to his satisfaction, and then leaned back in his chair and propped his boots up on the desk, his eyes still fixated on the screen. His brows knit slightly, not, for the first time in many days, in frustration, but in puzzled curiosity, tinged with – concern? Sentiment? Uncertainty? What was routine for Starfleet could be anything but for its personnel. And of all the innocuous personnel transfers that could have far-reaching private consequences, never was that more true than of the order Kirk had just read.

"Admiral?" Spock said, clearing his throat, and Kirk realized that he had actually been torturing his Vulcan companion with the suspense. Well, even a little concern could be logical when the collapsed Klingon Empire was falling on your head…

"Spock", said Kirk, "Lt. Commander Saavik is being transferred from the USS Bozeman here, to headquarters. She is released from active duty and is to serve 'at our disposal'."

"On what grounds, Admiral?" And Kirk imagined that somewhere under that practiced façade was a very loud note of alarm.

"Just says 'In light of recent events and in case of special accommodation required by the Vulcan ambassador…'"

"Is that some form of code..?"

"No Spock, it means what it says. Whatever the hell that is."

"What is… the lieutenant commander's estimated time of arrival?"

"Any time in the next twenty hours."

"Is there not more specific time-related information available?"

"Spock, we have Klingons popping out of subspace at a moment's notice and falling on our heads like Tribbles and you are dissatisfied with a twenty-hour time window for the arrival of a Starfleet officer?" Kirk regretted his harsh tone almost immediately.

"I see your point, Admiral."

"Forgive me, Spock. As you've seen, I've been a little ragged." _The rigors of performing ones duty are no excuse for irrational outbursts, _Kirk imagined the half-Vulcan's voice saying in his head.

Instead, Spock replied, "There is no offense where none is taken", a little too rote. He was clearly lost deep in thought. "To whom is the message referring by 'Vulcan ambassador'?"

"I think that's you, Spock."

"I have received no communication of any kind relating to this personnel transfer…" Christ, Spock, thought Kirk, do you have to call it a 'personnel transfer'? She wasn't even his personal protégé, and Kirk still had a hard time thinking of Saavik as 'personnel'.

"The message may indeed refer to myself", said Spock, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, there was that tell-tale hint of hoarseness in his voice, and immediately Kirk mentally forgave his one-time first officer for his tenacious yet occasionally fragile ability to be So. Damned. Vulcan… "or it may refer to my father Sarek." Spock cleared his throat and shot a longing glance at the edge of Kirk's desk, as though he wanted to reach out to it for support. "Is there any indication as to which of us is actually being referenced?" His eyes held Kirk's yet again, but this time, the surface of the water was not glassy. There was a deep opening in it, like the sucking, swirling yawning of a whirlpool.

_Shit, he's drowning here,_ thought Kirk. The admiral continued to stare at his computer screen. 'Classified Message from Vulcan Ambassador Sarek: Starfleet Command Personnel Clearance Strictly Required: Enter Command Codes on Next Screen', it leered at him.

"None", said Kirk, his voice louder and sharper than he had intended.

Spock did not press further. Spock did not seem to notice that Kirk was not being absolutely forthright with him. Spock would normally have noticed that if Spock were not distracted. Spock is distracted.

_Shit, shit, shit. Hellfire and damnation! _

What key-pusher in what ass-crack of the universe thought that sending them Saavik was the thing to help them out right now?

Sarek. Sarek was the key-pusher. And Vulcan was the proverbial ass-crack. How the hell had Sarek, _Vulcan Ambassador Sarek,_ reached out from his home planet to get an order pushed through Starfleet? And without Kirk knowing about it! And in the midst of the great Klingon crisis of the universe as we have known it!

Something told Kirk that this was not a happy-dappy Vulcan reunion. There was something big behind this. This order, this action, was somehow… big. It wasn't social, it was political, or it was even more than that. What is bigger than politics? Social politics? Sarek, Spock, Saavik… _Valeris…_

That was it. Kirk was through with spreading his mental reserves any thinner by pondering the inscrutable motives of Vulcans. Whatever the hell Sarek had up his billowy sleeves, time would just have to tell.

Then he remembered what the consequences had been the last time a Vulcan had done something Starfleet never expected.

Consequences! All these vacuous, intangible consequences that changed every time you moved from one thought to another and reset the pieces on the board! Not even Spock could have predicted Valeris' betrayal, regardless of how much he might retrospectively torture himself…

Sarek was not Valeris. Valeris was a rank junior officer, with too much commendation and not enough light years under her belt. And who knows what else had gone wrong inside that supposedly logical brain! Sarek was a seasoned veteran of interstellar negotiation. Hell, they called him 'the man who built the Federation', didn't they? And he was Spock's father. Spock could deal with him.

_E-nough!_ He was going to have to leave Spock to sort through this socio-political Vulcan triangle – no, square – on his own. Isn't that what Spock did best? And he would be damned if he was going to go back to worrying about the 'extra strain' on the pointy-eared former science officer bastard – on his worst days and Kirk's best, Spock was still functioning at ten times the performance Kirk was able to deliver in this damned _diplomatic milieu._ God bless those pointy ears!

Now, all Kirk needed was to get back to his Klingons. 'His Klingons' – pfff! And what he really needed were some god-damn concrete facts!

* * *

"Saavik?"

"Yes, Bones, _Saavik…"_

"As in, the closest thing Spock has to a family of his own Saavik? As in, Saavik who spent a lifetime with him in the matter of a couple of days on the surface of the Genesis Planet Saavik?"

"Do you know another Saavik, Bones, because I don't."

"As in, the Saavik he doesn't speak to?" That caught Kirk's attention, albeit hazily.

"What? They don't speak to one another?"

"I asked Spock once if he had spoken to her at all since we left her on Vulcan and he told me, No. And of course the next thing out of my mouth was, Why, Spock? In heaven's name, why? And do you know what he said to me?"

"What?" Kirk's interest was fading again.

"He said, Because, doctor, it would be… And now, you know Jim, I thought sure he was going to say 'illogical'. I was all ready for him. And then the scoundrel gave me the slip. Do you know what he actually said? He said, 'improper'. Well, I didn't have the first clue what to say to that. And so he got away with it. But that's what he said; I remember it plain as day, he said, Because, doctor, it would be _improper_. Now what the devil do you suppose that means?"

"Bones, I have decided that Vulcan-ness is bottomless. It is a territory no man will ever be able to successfully chart", slurred Kirk, staring into the depths of his drink as he swirled the glass in his hand. A tiny whirlpool formed in the liquid suspension of liquor and melted ice. Kirk set his glass down abruptly with a shrill, "Chink!"

"What's the matter with your drink? Martini not up to the admiral's exacting standards this evening?" demanded McCoy with his usual too-shrewdness. Kirk covered his face with his hands, ground his palms into his eye sockets.

"Bones, I'm tired!" opined the admiral. "You can't possibly know _how exhausting_ it is!"

"Hm. You haven't exactly been the best of company lately", said McCoy as though it were a diagnosis.

"_I_ haven't been the best of company?" exclaimed Kirk.

"Did she request the transfer?" Damn – he was not going to let this go. McCoy's incredulity knew no bounds.

"No."

Oops.

"Who transferred her, here, now?"

"I can't say, Bones." Storm clouds gathered over McCoys forehead. Kirk could almost imagine seagulls roosting in those eyebrows for shelter from the maelstrom.

"Can't…? Or WON'T?" barked the doctor.

"Under certain circumstances, those two can be synonymous."

"Like WHAT circumstances?" demanded McCoy.

"Like, the Klingon Empire just imploded in our backyard circumstances." Kirk was resolute. This was not the mellow, unwinding end to the day for which he had hoped. His best friend seemed to need re-briefing on the proper function of a best friend…

"Jim, are you telling me it doesn't strike you as at all odd that the one highly significant person in Spock's life that neither of us know anything about and with whom he has not been in communication for over half a decade now is suddenly materializing here in Starfleet headquarters with unspecified orders?"

"It certainly strikes me as odd that they haven't spoken in over half a decade", said Kirk, wondering if a more subtle approach to steering McCoy off the train of thought was needed, seeing as out-right derailment through the use of selfish sympathy-seeking had failed…

"Of course, now that I think about it", said the doctor, "I haven't spoken with her in all that time, either."

"She has never contacted me personally", said Kirk. He sat up from where he had half-slumped over the bar. He eyed the martini glass warily, but dared not to pick it up again. "And that's a pity. I was really quite fond of her…" He stared dreamily into space, surrendering to the exhaustion enough that his body was beginning to take on a pleasant floating sensation. The two previous martinis – the ones he had wisely not swirled – may have been beginning to take effect, too. "Did you ever contact her?"

"No. Did you?"

"No. Well, that settles that. I guess we are both as guilty as Spock."

"Jim, we will never be as guilty as Spock. We didn't raise her from a tiny starving orphan to adulthood." The distraction technique was working its magic on McCoy.

"You have a valid point there."

"What could be improper about contacting someone who shared your home for the better part of her life?"

"Like I said, Bones. Vulcan-ness – bottomless."

"Don't you find it curious that the arrest of the second protégé heralds the return of the first? Do you suppose all this has everything to do with Valeris?"

Damn. And the "malign Spock" distraction technique had seemed to be working so well…

* * *

Lost in thought, Spock rounded a corner in one of thousands of hallways in the Federation capitol building, glancing up only by chance to ensure against crashing into unsuspecting strangers in his swift gait. And there she was, at the other end of the very same corridor. Saavik… her hair still pulled severely back from her face in Starfleet regulation style, the free portion tumbling down her back in unruly curls, but her body in off-duty mode, all sign of rank or affiliation absent – she still wore her uniform trousers, with a long tunic of some Vulcan drab yanked on over them and hanging to her mid thigh. She had changed hurriedly, Spock realized, discarding only the one garment that her rank and regulations demand she treat with respect. With this plain, almost ugly, simple tunic that went unnoticed past all but Spock, she had freed herself as much as possible from the restrictive grip of Starfleet. And she had done so with all possible haste.

She was here. Not here as in within the same solar system. Not here as in a few light years away. Not here as in within the reach of hailing frequencies. Here as in within the reach of thoughts. Within the reach of touch.

He was completely unprepared to assimilate the implications of that realization. He knew that much. He was, at least, prepared for his unpreparedness. He had foreseen this reaction immediately, when he had first heard the news of her visitation. Sure, he had used what little warning time he had to meditate diligently, to shore up is control as best he could. But he had known then, as he knew now, that there was nothing in this universe capable of preparing him for this reunion. When it came to Saavik, there was never any map of the territory, and he was always flying blind. If he had thought that years of separation would make that fact less so, he was sorely mistaken.

_But then,_ whispered some dark and rarely heeded awareness, _isn't that what you secretly live for? That strange, intoxicating release that comes only from thrusting yourself into the depths of the unknown and the unexplored?_

Was that his inner voice, or Saavik's? Was he already so affected by her physical presence, while she was yet thirty feet away?

Time seemed to stand still for him, while for her it seemed it could not move quickly enough. She moved with all possible speed short of running. Her face was hard, her eyes locked with purpose, her body tight with a cat-like explosiveness. She was fixated on him as though he were the object of some murderous rage. Anyone but Spock would have found it difficult to understand the intent behind the intensity, and uncomfortable to be the sole recipient of its focus.

Was he comfortable? "The sensors are not calibrated to measure comfort", he muttered to himself in a moment of indulgent self-mockery. The corner of his mouth twitched up in a wry little smile of amusement at personal expense before his expression became impassive again.

She was close now, so close that all the other sounds in the corridor faded, and he could hear only the warm rush of her breathing, and her boots claiming the distance between them. And then she was standing in front of him, so that he could feel the warmth of her body heat – that familiar heat that made human women seem barely alive with coldness by comparison – right here. Right now. Stock still and all stoicism, except for her glowing brown eyes staring unblinkingly up into his… Her eyes were all ablaze.

"Saavikam", he said simply, stalwartly. And though deep and choked and thick, the word sounded hollow to him as it bounced back to him off the walls of the corridor, compared to the raging he kept concealed within him.

"T'hy'la", said Saavik fearlessly. The word ripped from one end of his consciousness to the other.

"Saavikam", he breathed again. She only stood, rigid, and stared back. Unapologetic. Merciless. And he at once sensed the critical change that had occurred in her in their years apart. She had always been a shy, unassuming thing. When young, she had been fierce to cover the shyness. When older – when he had at last succeeded in civilizing her, at least in the eyes of the world – the shyness had come to rule her. But now? Oh, now… how strange to tell... The shyness was simply gone, and in its place, only fierceness and ability remained. Pride and dread swelled alike within Spock at the realization, and were alike immediately repressed.

And then, before he could stop her, she had her arms wrapped around his neck, and all of that warmth was pressed against the front of him. And was it her body that overwhelmed him, or this consuming tenderness that welled within him that he wanted to pour down on her? His hands had idly clutched onto her back, palms over the large muscles between her shoulder blades, and his face in her hair alone was enough for their minds to erratically twist around and grate against one another, thoughts and memories colliding at random here and there, bumping against one another and separating, or sometimes snagging, tangling and dragging painfully one on the other.

"Missed you so much!" Saavik's mind screamed above the intermittent noise.

"May only goodness befall you, my Saavik", Spock's own thoughts shouted back, barely any more coherent than hers. They were being so reckless. It was unwise. Unsafe. If they lost their senses, if they began to really fuse this carelessly, Spock reminded himself, one of them could forget where the one began and the other ended. And then who would clean up the mess?

And then she flexed her stomach muscles and tilted her pelvis into his groin, and the groan he emitted was audible, vocal. He staggered backward from her as though phased, having to catch himself with a hand on the wall behind him. His usually lithe body was hunched, ragged, undone, his eyes murderous. She could hear his heart racing at the extreme of its capacity. The sound seemed to vibrate inside of her.

"Saavik, not here", he panted. He was suddenly hyper aware of all the other people in the corridor. Most of them were still around the corner, out of human earshot, but three young female interns were standing opposite them, frozen in poses as though they had just recoiled from some dangerous animal, eyes and mouths wide with uncomprehending shock. The moment his burning black eyes locked with the startled baby blues of the three blond girls, the humans unfroze and scurried away in terror without a word. Saavik closed the distance between she and he again, but stopped short of physical contact.

"Where, then?" her voice was half purr, half growl close to his ear. She knew by the way his eyes flitted around the corridor, by the scraps of thought she had read a moment ago, that "Not here" did not mean, "Not in the capitol building", but merely, "Not in this corridor…"

"Move your things", Spock said lowly, still trying to catch his breath. He brushed the tip of an index finger over her temple, and the number and security code of his quarters here in the capitol building appeared luminous in her mind. "Understand?"

Saavik nodded twice, slowly, her lips slightly parted over her clenched incisors in an expression that could only communicate anticipation.

Without a single word more, Spock turned his back on her, and walked as swiftly and with as much determination away from her as she had walked toward him in the first place. He had to be somewhere, anywhere where she wasn't, for a few hours more. There was suddenly a new kind of urgency to his work here. There were things that he had to set in place, ideas he had to lay down, before the coming implosion completely incapacitated his faculties for… how long? He had no way of predicting. This was Saavik. Saavik, the unmapped territory. Soon, the control systems would fail, and he would be flying manual. Just as he had so many years ago…


End file.
